


Definitive Adjectives

by InkandOwl



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, But it's worked through, Derry Curse (Stephen King), Emotional Baggage, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:42:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28826892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkandOwl/pseuds/InkandOwl
Summary: By the time Richie gets home, Eddie has already started up the slow cooker for dinner tonight. He got it for his birthday and it’s been a sort of obsession ever since. “I think you could end up being one of those people that gets a Peloton and becomes absorbed into the cult.” Richie puts his bag and his keys on the kitchen counter and hops up onto a cold metal bar stool just to watch him dump a bag of hashbrowns in.“It’s a fucking fitness network, Richie, they’re not going to hurt you.” Eddie’s hair is undone from it’s workday slick and Richie wants to dig his fingers into the untamed fluff, “How was your appointment?”“Good.” Richie drums his fingers against the counter, “I got good grades today, the teacher only gave me a little bit of homework.”—Richie's therapist asks him to make a list of all the things he likes about being gay. He struggles to differentiate between shame and pride and Eddie helps without actually helping.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 14
Kudos: 67





	Definitive Adjectives

Richie starts seeing a therapist when he’s forty one. 

It’s embarrassing, he thinks, to be forty one and just now realizing that maybe he’s a little bit fucked up, but then the therapist looks at his from behind his own smudged up glasses and says, “Our generation wasn’t offered a lot of leniency when it came to being, well— not fucked up.” 

So, Richie likes Dr. Ng, who tells him to call him Wade, and doesn’t react to anything Richie says like it’s particularly startling. He also doesn’t tell him about the clown. 

“I know it’s 2017, no one’s gonna, like, gay bash me or whatever, so— the future is now.” Richie tells him one day, ankles crossed in front of him while he taps his thumbs together in his lap. 

Wade hums in agreement, “Sure, but it doesn’t stop you from gay bashing yourself.” 

He directs the eraser end of his pencil at Richie and really, who is Richie to argue with that? 

“Right, so that’s the thing.” Richie takes a breath that’s far too deep and ends up hurting in his lungs, “I don’t want to do that to myself. Anymore.” 

Wade looks infinitely proud of him, “Good.” He chirps, very professional and spirited, “I want you to make a list of things in your life that make you happy, that are positive for you, make you feel—” He does this sweeping gesture with his hands, “Fulfilled. I want you to only include things that relate to your sexuality though for this one.” 

Richie hates getting assignments, and he’s already done a few of these before. What do I like about myself? What do I find funny? What do I like doing for people in my life? 

“You want me to make a list of my kinks?” 

Wade huffs out a slightly amused laugh, “No, but you can put sex on there as a catchall if you want. I want you to find joy in being gay, and that way you can feel some pride with it too. You’re not going to be able to start shaking the shame you learned your whole life if you don’t stop viewing who you are as shameful.” His eyes flick upwards to the clock and he stands, offering a hand to Richie. To shake. For comfort. “Internalized homophobia is no easy battle, Rich, but you’re doing a lot for yourself just by being here. Make the list, I promise, it’ll help.” 

Richie ends up walking back to his condo instead of taking an uber, deciding that it might do him good to breath in some fresh LA pollution and see what the fuck Californians are up to these days. Eddie’s off work today, and maybe Richie’s sort of also putting off seeing him for an extra twenty minutes fresh out of a therapy session. He’s feeling a little raw in the moment. When Eddie had moved in with him, two weeks out of their Derry reunion, Richie had known in his heart that it was simultaneously the best idea and the worst idea. The best because Eddie is still, after all these years, his best friend. The worst because he’s so hideously in love with him he gets anxiety shits most days just thinking about how no middle aged man has any business looking that cute when he falls asleep on the couch. 

He’s ready to wander past a bookstore when a flash of color catches his eye. It’s a rainbow flag, hung up on the wall inside, with a handwritten sign advertising LGBT+ literature. Richie fusses enormously. Shoves his fists into his pockets, bites his lip, looks around like he’s about to rob the place and not poke around at some titles, and it makes him seem suspicious for no reason. He _knows_ this, but he can’t help it. He’s in LA for fucks sake, no one cares! 

Finally, he convinces himself that if he’s going to try and find gay shit about himself that he likes, he can start by reading about other people’s gay shit first. There’s a girl inside, digging books out of a box on the floor and setting them onto the shelves when Richie walks in. She looks up and offers a kind smile, “Hi, welcome! Did you need any help today or are you just looking around?” She looks like she’s fresh out of college, hair as red as Bev’s, with wild flyaways, and Richie is momentarily distracted with the vibrant halo it creates around her head. 

“Um, just looking.” Richie shrugs, feeling every bit like an awkward hulking monster. He pretends to skim a shelf of true crime novels that’s conveniently close to the actual books he wants to be looking at, and glances out of the corner of his eye. It’s almost like a part of him expects to be inundated with gay porn on the covers, and maybe an automated announcement that loudly blares out Dancing Queen and screams “You’re gay! A gay man looking at gay literature because you like men and you want to think about them naked!” 

Richie squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. He’s embarrassed and feels weirdly on the verge of tears. 

“I’m gonna make a display of Pulitzers today.” The girl's voice is calm, like Richie is an easily spooked animal. When he blinks his eyes open at her she’s holding two books, both of them very safe looking. “This one is about World War 2, some love story in France, they’ll probably make an oscar bait movie out of it—” She looks up at Richie and waits for him to grin a bit at that and smiles, “You don’t really strike me as a historical fiction type.” 

“Yeah, uh, not really.” He looks at the somber blue cover, “My roommate would love this shit though.” 

She laughs, “I just started this one for a book club though, it’s a character study about this failed novelist. He’s revisiting parts of his life after his ex-boyfriend gets engaged, it’s really easy to get into.” 

It also has a blue cover, only it’s even more unintimidating than the first. An illustration of a man falling through the air in a sharp suit and papers falling around him. Less. Richie takes the book carefully, “I’ll, uh— I think I could give this one a try.” 

“Starting with an award winner. Very bold of you.” She says and Richie likes her a lot. That she’s silently held his hand like the big dumb baby he is. “I’m Sarah, I’m here practically all the time, so if you ever want more suggestions just let me know.” 

Richie follows her to the register, where she very pointedly turns her face and tucks her thick red hair behind her ear to show off a tiny enamel rainbow stud in her lobe. When Richie makes eye contact with her he doesn’t look away, “I’m Richie. Thanks for helping me out.” 

By the time Richie gets home, Eddie has already started up the slow cooker for dinner tonight. He got it for his birthday and it’s been a sort of obsession ever since. “I think you could end up being one of those people that gets a Peloton and becomes absorbed into the cult.” Richie puts his bag and his keys on the kitchen counter and hops up onto a cold metal bar stool just to watch him dump a bag of hashbrowns in. 

“It’s a fucking fitness network, Richie, they’re not going to hurt you.” Eddie’s hair is undone from it’s workday slick and Richie wants to dig his fingers into the untamed fluff, “How was your appointment?”

“Good.” Richie drums his fingers against the counter, “I got good grades today, the teacher only gave me a little bit of homework.” 

“Ah.” Eddie says lightly, setting some cubes of fancy cheese he’s been cutting up in front of Richie. Like he’s a dog or something. Richie shoves two of them into his mouth, “You went to a bookstore?” 

Richie looks down at the bag in front of him, the book shaped logo and the imprint of the actual book a giveaway, “Oh, uh, yeah, I was walking home and stopped in that one next to the Orangetheory Fitness—”

Eddie rolls his eyes, “Just go to a gym if you want, literally no one is going to judge you for it.” 

“I have an image to uphold.” 

“Of what? For who? Schlubby podcasters that do deep dives into internet conspiracies? You’re not even in bad shape, you just dress like shit.” Eddie snaps. 

Richie makes a pained hissing noise, but really, he’s entirely hung up on Eddie saying he’s not in bad shape. He ends up laughing instead when Eddie gestures to the entirety of him. “I’ll start doing yoga with you, we can be like those arthritis commercials with old people on cliff sides.” 

“That’s tai chi, I _know you know that’s tai chi_.” Eddie closes his eyes, tilts his face up towards the ceiling, and Richie can see him doing everything to school a smile. “What did you buy, I don’t want to talk about exercise with you anymore.” 

There’s no way for Eddie to glean from the cover or the title that it’s a book about a gay man, but Richie’s skin still prickles with fear and he goes for a nonchalant shrug, “It won a Pulitzer, the girl at the store is doing a bookclub so she, you know— recommended it.” 

Eddie must sense Richie’s discomfort, because Eddie can sense everything about Richie, so he very carefully says, “That’s cool. Um. Tell me if it’s good.” 

And then he’s back to cutting into a doughy block of cheese and Richie suddenly feels bad about feeling bad. “My therapist wants me to make a list. You would love him.” 

The tension bleeds out from Eddie’s shoulders and he huffs out a quick laugh, “This man sounds like a dream.” 

For a quick, childish moment, Richie wants to stick his tongue out and ask, “So why don’t you marry him, huh?” and pout, because how dare Eddie even _consider_ joking about being attracted to another man when Richie is _right there_. He digs his notebook out of the fruit bowl instead and writes across the top of a fresh page- _THE BEST THINGS ABOUT BEING GAY_. He underlines the words and then puts down a bullet point to scribble down

* _Bookstores_

-

“What are we watching?” Richie doesn’t like the throw blankets on the couch because they don’t cover enough of his body, so he brings the entire comforter from his bed when he settles onto the couch next to Eddie. 

“Schitt’s Creek. Mike’s been up my ass about watching it since we first got back to Derry, but it’s a Canadian show and I had to figure out this VPN thing—” Eddie’s rambling starts to peter off as he clicks around on the controller. Keeping a playstation in the house was strictly for the use of streaming services now and in no way shape or form because either of them should be allowed to play video games. Together or otherwise. 

The show starts up and Richie puts on his best hacker voice to say, “We’re in.” 

Eddie laughs wildly and it heats Richie up to the core to hear it. A full length mirror to his own childhood and he wants to wrap Eddie up in his overly fluffy bed sheets and feel his laughter against his side so that he can absorb its powers. In the end, it’s a funny show. Hilarious actually, and Richie is drawn into it easily— happy to be engrossed in well written humor with Eddie. But he finds himself a little entranced with David. Not in the same way he’s entranced with Eddie; although they’re both uptight, bitchy and hilarious. 

He’s thoroughly taken with the fact that David is queer, he’s funny, and not a single joke has been at the expense of his sexuality. 

Eddie, of course, addresses it first, the brave little bastard. 

“I wish all gay characters were like this.” He says, slumped over on the couch, dimples still lingering from all the laughter, “Like they’re not a punchline.” 

Richie feels like his brain is going to overheat with how many things he’s turning over, again and again. That he’s out now to the Losers, sure, but he could be like this. He could write clever shows and routines that embrace who he is and how he feels on a day to day basis. But then, he’d probably have to have been raised in an environment like Dan Levy, where he didn’t feel like his own heartbeat was an inconvenience. 

The silence carries on for too long, and Eddie bumps his shoulder into him, “You alright in there?” 

“Hmm? Oh— yeah, i’m good.” 

Eddie nods, but he looks far from accepting of that answer and he starts to pluck at the tag on Richie’s comforter, “I wish you hadn’t been so alone.” It’s like being doused with cold water, slapped in the face, and dropped from a great height all at once. “I know we were all alone before we came back, but even as kids. Even when we all had each other, you were still only living half a life, and I just— I wish I could go back in time and be there for you then. Tell you I— we all still love you, _of course_ we still love you.” 

It’s roughly the third time today that Richie’s wanted to break down into tears, but he tilts his head back against the couch and watches the ceiling fan circle lazily above until he can trust himself to speak. “You wouldn’t go back and undo the whole clown thing?” 

Eddie groans and kicks him in the shin, “Obviously I would’ve preferred to not have the fucking clown around.” His hand goes to his forehead and he sighs, all put upon and dramatic. “How about: I would’ve liked it if the seven of us grew up in like, San Francisco, and had decent childhoods with the normal kind of dysfunction.” 

“Like, ‘Oh, my mom says I can’t play in the band with you guys since she found my weed stash’?” 

“Exactly.” Eddie sits up, “Do you think our parents would’ve been better people if they weren’t in Derry?” 

It’s a thought Richie’s had before. In the grand scheme of Derry parents, Richie’s really weren’t all that bad. His mom relied a little too heavily on alcohol, but so did a lot of housewives in the eighties, and his dad loved him, but he worked more than he saw his family and he was toeing the line of neglect. They had seen something in Richie though, and his mom, in a drunken depression had begged him to please find a nice girl. Try to find it in his heart to love someone that isn’t Eddie shaped and decidedly male. _‘Richie, you’re only going to get hurt. There’s nothing good that can come from this. I’ve seen the way you look at him, please—_ ’

And then he thinks about Sonia Kaspbrak, and if, instead of becoming a smothering, monster of a woman that drowned her son in worry and pills he didn’t need, she would’ve been the right side of protective. That she put just a bit too much sunscreen on him when he went out to swim with his friends, instead of shutting him away in his room and barring him from seeing his friends at all. That makes Richie angrier than the line of thought with his own parents and he reaches over to ruffle Eddie’s hair, “I don’t know, Spaghetti. They’re boomers, maybe they were just fucked from the get go.” 

“When my mom—” Eddie clears his throat, “When Sonia died, that last night, she—” 

It’s like the words are causing him physical pain and Richie wants to hide them all away, so that he never has to think of them again, “You don’t have to tell me, Eds—”

“I do.” Eddie’s eyes are watery, angry and wide, like he doesn’t know what emotion he feels so he’s settling on them all. “She was so tired, it was like I was seeing her for the first time. Like she had stopped trying to cotton stuff the world around me and I was thirty three, Rich. Thirty three and she was finally looking at me like an adult.” Eddie wipes his eye on the back of his wrist, “She said, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t save you’. I think she was a good person, somewhere inside of her, but she got lost. We all did.” He slips his hand into Richie’s, something they used to do at sleepovers when they were the most scared, or sad. When they needed to know that they had each other present to keep them physically anchored to the earth. “I don’t want you to get lost ever again, I couldn’t stand it if the world didn’t get to experience all of Richie Tozier. I’m proud of you.” 

There’s no pretending like he isn’t crying so Richie wipes his face roughly on the sleeve of his shirt and tells him, “That’s pretty gay, Eds.” 

“Yeah.” Eddie says solemnly, “It is.” 

“I’m proud of you too.” 

Because he is. He survived a near impaling, broken ribs, a punctured lung, stitches, a divorce! Eddie is strong and fierce and beautiful and he makes Richie feel proud by proxy just to know him. Just to love him. 

“Okay, well, hug me now because this was a fucked up way for me to end our evening.” Eddie demands and holds his arms open, and who is Richie to say no to that? He wraps Eddie up tight in his arms and squeezes until he lets out a squeaky little gasp. 

That night, before Richie goes to bed, he adds to his list.

* _Bookstores_

* _Schitt’s Creek_

* _Being braver than I was_


End file.
